A few years ago strawberry production in Ukraine was considered unprofitable business and domestic markets were filled with berries from neighboring Poland and other EU countries. The work experience of Ukrainians, mainly in the Polish fields, made it possible to understand that Ukraine itself could well provide the growing demand for strawberries in the domestic market. This has been proved in practice - over the past 6 years, import volumes of fresh strawberries have decreased by 88% from 1286 tons in 2012 to 153 tons in 2017, while exports increased by 90% from 184 tons to 1799 tons, respectively.
Data: UCAB
Poland is one of the main world producers of garden strawberries and grows about 200 thousand tons of commercial strawberries, that is three times more than the volumes which are produced in Ukraine at present. Also, this country is the global leader in exports of frozen strawberries - 95 thousand tons in 2017. However, over the past 6 years, imports of Polish strawberries into Ukraine have decreased by 68%, while Ukraine has increased exports of frozen strawberries to Poland from 0,031 tons in 2013 to 3.2 tons in 2017.
Data: "Info-Shuvar"
According to the Ukrsadprom Association, Ukraine exported 1,8 tons of fresh strawberries and 3,0 thousand tons of frozen strawberries in 2017. Last year domestic enterprises exported 15% of fresh and 25% of frozen strawberries. Export supplies are provided solely by the companies that can offer large, homogeneous batches of products.
The strawberry season doesn’t last long, so in the short term, the cost of sweet berries will slowly grow due to the supply reduction. As for other food products, during May, Ukrainians could see an increase in the prices for most of them: beets (+66%), cabbage (+64%), carrots (+48%) and onions (+18%). However, this is a transitional period, which is observed annually - stocks of vegetables of the old yield are running out and a new harvest is coming to the market, which in the first months is rather "biting" in price, but with the growth of supplies volumes to the domestic market, prices will stabilize and fall closer to September.
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